Ethics in PR

Ethics has always been a tricky topic for PR practitioners; “spin doctors” tend to walk in the grey area, which sometimes get morally challenged. But is there a different standard for ethics in different aspects of PR practice?

I think for those who work in the areas and campaigns which are related to the welfare and benefits of the public, there should be less allowance for the “grey area”. No matter it is for political PR, consumer PR or public sector PR. Practitioners should make sure the PR activities would not be part of the “scheme” that could possibly harm the public.

However, for some other PR practice, it is purely personal choice to do the “spin”, such as Max Cliford, the man of celebrity PR. People have controversial opinions about him, as he’s always playing the trick to manipulate the media and create buzz-----but, for celebrities only. It’s different from starting a war, or running away from taking responsibility for product quality problems, or covering the truth that the public deserve to know. He is doing the publicity for the celebrities, and worst of the worst, the public got some annoying gossips and tacky headlines. All the manipulations and spinning is part of his work, no matter how others hate it, and how fluffy it makes our PR industry looks like, maybe Max Clliford hasn’t done the “right thing”, but he hasn’t caused any inconvenience to the “greater good” of the public, either.

Therefore, I do believe ethics in PR industry should be treated differently in terms of different practice. As long as it does not hurt the public interests, or most people’s welfare, it’s remained in the safe zone called “personal choice” and deserves less judgment.

[PR & New Media] Webcast - What is Social Media

The webcast is made mostly of random pictures from web, thanks to Google Image.com.

I try to use as simple and direct expressions as I can to explain the definition of social media, to my (potential) clients who know nothing about it.

My idea about social media is a platform, where everybody can share everything with everyone else, with no restrictions such as time and space differences.

However, as it says in Virtual Revolution, the new technology is just a new way of reflections of human behaviours, and human nature is not going to change because of that.

As long as human exists, no matter it's social media or some other kind of new technology, good & evil exist.

The Role Social Media Plays in Crisis Management

Social Media's booming is now recognized by almost everyone. A recent article about " Five Steps to Better Crisis Management in PR Week by Kate Magee has put using social media as the "biggest change for crisis management".

There are two major reasons for that: one. social media provides instant communication channel which makes bad news travel even faster and more difficult to control, so it can be the biggest threat in terms of crisis management. On the other hand, just because of its direct, instant and influential style, using in a proper way, social media can greatly help with the communication and the crisis management by clarifying misleading and exaggerate messages and sending out proper information in time.

"Eurostar's recent crisis, when snow-disrupted trains left passengers stranded during the week before Christmas, was a classic example of why having a grip on social media is crucial. Passengers were tweeting complaints and updates about the situation online. But Eurostar was hindered from the outset - it did not own its 'eurostar' or 'eurostar uk' name on Twitter."

'Digital has changed everything,' says Alex Woolfall, head of issues and crisis management, Bell Pottinger. 'Our starting point for clients is now finding out where an issue is going to break online.'

According to Martt Cartmell in PR week, "half of all agencies (51 per cent) had a client that had exp erienced a crisis management situation involving social media in the past 12 months. Some 61 per cent said the use of social media had exacerbated the story, while 45 per cent said it gave journalists easy access to disgruntled people. "

Therefore it is clear that social media is playing a more and more important role in crisis management as it's accelerating the news no matter in a good way or a bad way. To use it to help with the crisis, honesty should still be the priority in terms of PR strategy. With social media, people are having more close contact with each other, and any deliberate spin or made-up stories would be easily exposed, and influence other peers. For corporate, building up a personal, sincere and active social media image is one of the best ways to help with crisis management. And they are cheap.

One last thing is the proactive procedures. An active social media account is absolutely essential. Eurostar didnt have a twitter account, but the situation would be any better if it had a twitter account but hadn't logged in for ages. Audience needs to feel the genuineness to become interactive with the corporate on social media platforms during crisis management.

Therefore, use social media as the weapon in Crisis management, not just a new fancy toys just to show how “ techny savvy" the company is.

References:

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/986223/Crisis-Communications-Five-steps-better-crisis-management

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/990713/Corporates-increasingly-turn-social-media-mend-damaged-reputations/

Case Study of Google China--How lobbying affects Crisis Management

Google China Censorship Issue Case Study

View more presentations from Viola5.

This case study is more focused on how lobbying affects crisis management in China.

Timeline
2010 Jan 12^th, Google declared on its official blog that it “should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

2010 Jan 13^th, Some young Internet users sent flowers to Google China office, as a gesture of mourning. Controversial comments appeared online,

2010 Jan 14^th, the Spokesperson from Foreign Office expressed that the Chinese Internet is Open, and the government encourages the development of Internet, the Chinese Law prohibits all kinds of hack behavior and international internet enterprises are always welcomed developing legal business in China.

2010 Jan 15^th US Congress expressed their concern regarding the issue, senator Hilary Clinton, asking for further explanations and Internet freedom from Chinese government.

Background
2009 Janaury - April. The Central Government carried out the regulation towards online pornography information/resources with seven different ministries(Central News Office, Ministry of Industry & Information, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Business & Commerce, SARFT and the Head Publishing Association), with a lot of well-known websites on the list to be regulated. and Google was on the list twice.

2009 June 18^th, without much improvement or response from Google,

-Afternoon, The Internet Information Supervising Center called a meeting with Google China, acclaimed it not being cooperative to relative laws and regulations and made strong criticism. An official from the center told the press that Google China would make an public apology later.

Around 6 o’clock, the PR representative of Google China, Ms Wang Jing Hong said nothing was clear at that moment and no comment on the situation whatsoever. Situation would be updated in about an hour. But no further response followed for the next hour.

-Evening Google was accused of providing pornographic information and links by the most influential News Program of the most influential Media platform, the News Broadcasting at 7 on CCTV. Then the official accusation was followed by more detailed reports by two other most influential talk show and news program;

-Midnight Google China made a statement on its corporate blog, declaring it would dedicate more efforts to filter the pulp and inappropriate information online, which was hardly recognized as an apology.

2009 June 24^th-26^th People.com.cn(the website of People’s Daily, the most official Newspaper in China, voice of the Central Government) posted criticizing articles about Google China everyday for three days, saying the public all welcomed this regulation towards Google and attention should be made in case Google China continue to mess around with everyone.

2009 Sep. 04 Kai-Fu Lee, former CEO of Google China, left the company. Kai –Fu Lee was once recognized as the one to lead localization of Google China, however, things didn’t work out quite as planned.

2009 Nov. 30, rumor on Twitter that Google China is about to shut down. But twitter was already blocked so the news didn’t go far enough to China.

According to Political Lobbying by Charles Miller, there are a few characteristics of how decisions are made in UK based political system.

• Rarely single-facted

• Shaped & taken by several people

• Heavily influenced at a relatively low level

• Evidence-driven

• Negotiated

• No universal template

Proactive: keep active and regular contact with the government, don’t wait till something happen. And if something does happen, give a quick and proper response.

Local: understand the message the government sent out. For Google, it’s not the pulp information that really matters; it’s the political sensitive information.

Low profile: Kai-fu Lee has always been a high profile person, lecturing around the country, on TV show and publishing books.

Talk to them first: media should always get the news one step later than the government

Talk to the right one: Besides the seven ministries, the one really matters in this issue is actually the Central Publicity Department

Talk to them in private: build relationship with them under the table

Don’t—
Make it political
Confront
Count on third party influence

What did Google do?
Didn’t respond much to Jan-Apr criticism.
Didn’t really apologize
And…release the news before negotiating with the government.

Is Google quitting?
Maybe. If they don care losing the market of 384 million people and annual revenue of 600 million dollars.

On 02^nd Feb, 2010,no further announcement of whether to pull out from China, instead, Google China released new Gadget as “Google Map for Spring Festival Travel”, which includes the transport information from 31 major city train stations, ticket offices and 160 airports, aiming to provide more convenience to millions of people who are determined to travel back homel. Meanwhile, the Spokesperson of Google China continues to express “the Headquarter of Google China is under routine operation.”

Google needs to understand they’ve only got 2 options: keep censoring or giving up 600 million dollars.